Reflection in it, whether I ought to have mention'd
his Objection to _The Non-Juror_ at all; but as the Particularity of it
may let one a good deal into the Sentiments of Mr. _Pope_, I could not
refrain from bestowing some farther Notes upon it.

Well then! upon the great Success of this enormous Play, _The
Non-Juror_, poor Mr. _Pope_ laments the Decay of Poetry; though the
Impoliteness of the Piece is his only insinuated Objection against it.
How nice are the Nostrils of this delicate Critick! This indeed is a
Scent, that those wide-mouth'd Hounds the Daily-Paper Criticks could
never hit off! though they pursued it with the Imputation of every
Offence that could run down a Play: Yet Impoliteness at least they
oversaw. No! they did not disguise their real dislike, as the prudent
Mr. _Pope_ did; They all fairly spoke out, and in full Cry open'd
against it, only for its so audaciously exposing the sacred Character of
a lurking, treason-hatching Jesuit, and for inhumanly ridiculing the
conscientious Cause of an honest deluded Jacobite Gentleman. Now may we
not as well say to Mr. Pope, _Hinc illae lachrymae_! Here was his real
Disgust to the Play! For if Impoliteness could have so offended him, he
would never have bestowed such Encomiums upon the _Beggars Opera_, which
whatever Beauties it might boast, Politeness certainly was not one of
its most striking Features. No, no! if the Play had not so impudently
fallen upon the poor Enemies of the Government, Mr. _Pope_, possibly,
might have been less an Enemy to the Play: But he has a charitable
Heart, and cannot bear to see his Friends derided in their Distress:
Therefore you may have observed, whenever the Government censures a Man
of Consequence for any extraordinary Disaffection to it; then is Mr.
_Pope_'s time generously to brighten and lift him up with Virtues,
which never had been so conspicuous in him before. Now though he may be
led into all this, by his thinking it a Religious Duty; yet those who
are of a different Religion may sure be equally excused, if they should
notwithstanding look upon him as their Enemy. But to my Purpose.

Whatever might be his real Objections to it, Mr. _Pope_ is, at least, so
just to the Play, as to own it had great Success, though it grieved him
to see it; perhaps too he would have been more grieved, had he then
known, that his late Majesty, when I had the Honour to kiss his Hand,
upon my presenting my Dedication of it, was graciously plea